


Transitus -- Beyond

by starbuckmeggie



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Transition, West Wing - Freeform, donna moss - Freeform, josh and donna, josh lyman - Freeform, life - Freeform, post vacation, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-06 19:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14064249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbuckmeggie/pseuds/starbuckmeggie
Summary: Set immediately after our dynamic due get back from their vacation. A day in the life.





	1. Chapter 1

I’ve been hovering just at the edge of consciousness for a while now, refusing to open my eyes as if that means I’m still asleep. Everything here is just so warm and cozy that I can’t bring myself to face reality. My alarm clock will go off soon and I’ll have to face the world again.

My body tenses and I stretch a little, and my foot knocks against something solid. My eyes finally open a crack and I can’t help but grin at the sight that greets me.

Donna.

It’s real. My half-dreaming, half-waking state didn’t allow for much in the way of real thinking, but it also didn’t exactly encourage reality. I can’t help but be eternally thankful to whomever or whatever is out there that all of this hasn’t been the hallucinations of an exhausted shell of a human being.

I open my eyes completely, taking her in. That I’m waking up next to her still boggles my mind. She looks completely peaceful and beautiful as she sleeps. 

How is this my life?

Vaguely, I notice that light is starting to creep into the room, so I carefully turn my head to check the alarm clock, surprised to see that it’s already after seven.

Everything else starts to come back to me—it’s Saturday. We’re still on vacation. Our flight got in late last night, and after we got to my apartment, we didn’t bother to do much other than brush our teeth and crawl into bed.

How domestic. I can’t help but roll my eyes to myself. I’ve been with the woman for all of two and a half weeks and we’re already just falling asleep together.

In fairness, we had an insane amount of sex in Hawaii. I’m still not quite sure how I kept up, but I’m sure it has something to do with fresh air and exotic fruit. Not to mention that we’d been on a plane almost all of yesterday and it wasn’t exactly conducive to comfort, and it was an ungodly hour in the morning when we stumbled in.

Judging by how well I slept last night—and all of last week—I’m not opposed to just being in her presence and feeling rested.

She makes a little noise and turns over, her back to me. I waste no time in scooting up behind her, molding my body to hers. I’m fairly certain we fell asleep this way last night, but one thing we’ve learned in the last week is that we’re not close sleepers, at least not all the time. We’ll fall asleep that way, and if I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ll rearrange myself so I’m near her, but I usually wake up sprawled on my back with her on her side or face down if she’s really exhausted. Of course, we’ll then do something nauseating like this, cuddling each other into wakefulness. 

Seriously, Josh Lyman from a month ago would be disgusted by this, but there’s a lot to be said for finding a soothing way to greet the morning, and it just so happens that Donna Moss is the right balm. It’s nice to wrap our arms around each other and whisper in the quiet of a dark room, jut enjoying each other’s company before we face the day.

I sigh and wrap my arm around her waist. She’s not really awake at all yet, but that doesn’t bother me. I really like being able to hold her like this. I press a kiss to her shoulder and smile. This is the absolute best way to sleep and wakeup. I’ve never been exceptionally fond of sharing a bed with another person. It’s less of a selfish thing and more of a situation where I’m just always hyper-aware of the body next to mine, waking up constantly when I shift, she shifts, that sort of thing. Aside from the first night we spent together, sleeping beside Donna has felt completely natural. I’ve heard that, ultimately, people sleep better on their own. However, having spent a solid week sleeping next to Donna, I’m finding that to be actual garbage.

I let my hand wander to her stomach, disappointed to find it covered, and I can’t even remember either of us putting on clothes last night. I bunch up the bottom of the shirt and maneuver my hand beneath it, stroking her soft skin. Why on earth did she put on a shirt last night and…I pause, letting my hand drift down for a second—damn it, pajama pants. Neither of us have slept in anything but a smile for a week.

A bit more of the evening comes back to me, and I suddenly remember that we actually showered, too. She insisted on getting the airplane funk off of her, and I was only too happy to oblige. It wound up being a fairly innocent shower, all things considered, with only some mild groping and fooling around, both of us too tired to really do much else. Unfortunately.

But still…why the clothes? We didn’t even bother to unpack. I force my eyes open again and angle my head a little, looking down at her. I grin a moment later—she’s definitely wearing my undershirt. I bet if I were to look, she’d be wearing my pajama pants, too.

God, she’s adorable. I wonder what it says about me that I love that she’s already commandeering my clothing.

I manage to snake my other arm beneath her and pull her closer, sighing happily as she settles against me. It’d probably be easy to fall asleep again—Donna really is the best remedy for all the sleep I’ve lost over the last year—but we only have a couple of days together before we have to back to work. Do I really want to waste all that time in bed?

Well…do I want to waste all that time _sleeping?_ In bed is a whole different can of worms.

My fingers wander lower, dipping below the edge of her pants. I’m honestly not really trying to grope her, but the need to touch her in some capacity is simply overwhelming, even more so now that I’m allowed to.

She turns her head a little, rubbing her nose against my bicep before planting a soft kiss there. I remain quiet, waiting to see what she does. She’s probably awake, or at least on the verge, but I’m not going to give her that nudge if she’s more interested in sleep.

She kisses me again and clears her throat. “Good morning,” she says, her voice low, throaty, and completely sexy. I bury my face a little farther into her neck, kissing her delicate skin reverently.

“Morning,” I answer, happy when she presses herself a little closer. I tighten my arms around her, unable to get close enough.

Her head turns again, this time toward mine. I lean over her shoulder a little, unable to stop from grinning just a little before our lips meet. That whole morning breath thing never seems to faze us. Maybe it’s the early stages of the whole relationship thing, but I’ve never noticed her breath to be unappealing.

She shifts, moving onto her back, and I drape myself half over her as her arms wrap around my neck. My hands roam of their own volition, sliding roughly up and down her sides, her hips and thighs, until I get one hand under her shirt. My fingers kneed her breast with all the finesse of a sixteen-year-old while I devour her mouth. Still, all she does is giggle softly and thread her fingers through my hair, holding me close. She bends her leg, rubbing her toes against my calf.

I come up for air, gasping, pressing my lips to first her cheek, then her earlobe, and finally her neck before I settle my head next to hers on the pillow. I shift most of my weight off her, keeping our legs twined. “ _Now_ it’s a good morning,” I mumble.

“I’ll say,” she answers, squishing closer to me. “You realize you’re still groping me, right?”

I hadn’t, actually, though I now realize I’m holding onto her breast like a security blanket. “I’m okay with that.”

“You would be,” she grumbles good-naturedly. “You’re such a dirty old man.”

“Only when it comes to you, oddly.”

She giggles again and leans up, pressing a quick kiss to my lips. “Well, that’s all right, then.”

I could stop fondling her, but that doesn’t seem interesting. Instead, I loosen my grip on her breast but continue to slide my fingers over her gently, watching in fascination as her nipple hardens to a tantalizing peak beneath my undershirt. “What do you want to do today?” I ask, my voice probably an octave lower than normal.

She shudders a little, but other than that shows no reaction to what I’m attempting to do to her. “Nothing fun, probably.”

I moan in mock frustration. “Why not?” I whine.

“I have to do laundry. I hadn’t gotten to it for at least a week before we left and now I have an extra week’s worth to wash. I have to bring a lot of stuff to the dry cleaners, too, and if I’m lucky, it’ll be ready by tomorrow.”

“Sounds domestic,” I answer, kissing her neck again.

“It’s necessary. I’m about two pairs of socks from having to go out and just buy more clothes.”

“That’s better. Let’s do that so we can lounge around in bed all day.”

She turns to face me, our noses less than an inch apart on our shared pillow. “It’s cute that you think going shopping for clothes would be faster than washing what I have.” She gives me a quick kiss, smiling. “Haven’t you spent enough time with me this past week?”

I roll my eyes, trying to pull her closer. “Like one week of sex is going to satisfy years of yearning.”

“’Yearning’?” she repeats, a wide grin breaking out across her features.

I just shrug, genuinely not caring how needy I sound. “Use whatever word you want, but I certainly don’t want you less now that we’re back on the east coast.”

“How about this? I take care of all that mundane stuff today, and if you’re still interested, we’ll do the all day in bed thing tomorrow.”

“Sounds excellent.” Still, we make no move to get up. It’s very hard to convince myself that we need to get out of bed.

“I have to call CJ,” she finally mumbles.

“Why?”

“Because most of my laundry is at her place, and I need to let her know that I’m coming over. It doesn’t make me a bad friend to abuse her hospitality, disappear for a week, then come back to use her washer and dryer, right?”

I chuckle, pausing a moment later. “Why are you doing laundry there?”

“Well, Josh, that’s where my stuff is,” she answers slowly, like I’m an idiot. In fairness, I am an idiot most of the time. 

“Yeah, but I have a washer and dryer here.”

“Right…”

“So do your laundry here. Toss in the stuff from Hawaii, then we’ll go over to CJ’s and get your stuff and do the rest when we get back. If you do your laundry there, won’t you kind of be, you know, there all day?”

“I can’t spend time with my friend?”

I feel like I’ve fallen to some female trap. “Donna, don’t make me beg. Aren’t we still on our vacation? Is it a crime to want to be with you as much as possible before we go back to work? Does that make me a terrible person?”

She’s quiet for a moment before sighing. “Your mother would be proud.”

“Uhhh what?”

“That whole Jewish guilt thing. She’s managed to pass it along quite nicely.”

I chuckle, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll take what I can get, as long as that means I get to spend more time with you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she grumbles. She props herself up then, draping her body half over mine, and kisses me. I can’t help but moan with the intensity of it. I tighten my grip on her and roll fully onto my back. Her leg slides against mine and she pushes her hips into my groin. I think I can actually feel my blood rush out of my brain and head south.

Without warning, she peels herself away from me and sits up, scooting to the edge of the bed. “What the hell?” I gasp.

“You have your inherent guilt, I have other things.” With that she stands and stretches and even though I’m in a semi-delirious state, I still take a moment to appreciate the way my shirt rides up on her stomach and the way my pajama pants hang low on her hips. She’s somehow both adorable and sexy. Her ass sways involuntarily as she pads her way around the foot of the bed. She glances at me from the doorway of the connecting bathroom, her cheeks a little pink, and she grins at me sheepishly before shutting the door. I can hear the faucet running a moment later, and I grin ruefully to myself. It’s that strange intimacy thing. We have absolutely no problem with being naked in front of each other, with putting our hands and mouths on each other in any number of intimate ways, but God forbid we’re aware of each other’s bodily functions. I’m no better. I’m not exactly fond of her hearing me do any of that stuff. I’m sure it’ll even out eventually, but for now, we’re still skittish about bathroom stuff.

I shrug, pulling a pillow over my face. No matter. I have to try to get my body to relax. Between my natural morning state and the fact that I just had Donna crawling all over me, I’m pitching a pretty healthy tent right now. At least I know that I put on boxers last night, if the straining fabric is any indication.

I take deep breaths, doing my best to ignore the fact that I can smell Donna on the pillow I’m using to cover my face. All of my calm, cleansing thoughts are laced with thoughts of her, in any various states of undress.

I really have regressed to a sixteen-year-old boy.

I redouble my efforts, feeling a small amount of relief as my erection starts to ease off. Sure, it’s a little disappoint to let it go to waste, especially after a solid week of not letting a single moment of being turned on fall by the wayside, but even I can admit to being a bit…raw. I can only imagine how she’s feeling. And if pushing it back now means we get to have a day of sex tomorrow, it’s a sacrifice I’m more than willing to make.

Suddenly, the pillow is ripped from my face, and then, before I know what’s happening, I’m being whacked with it.

“Get up!”

I blink in shock, and Donna grins back at me before heading out of the room. God, I adore her.

I do manage to drag myself out of bed and into the bathroom. The man looking back at me in the mirror is completely different than the one there just over a week ago. I’m definitely more relaxed—being in paradise with the woman you love more than anything else in this world will do that. I take care of the necessities, pausing a moment to appreciate the way her toothbrush looks next to mine. It’s such a stupid, minor thing to focus on, and they’ve been side by side all week at the resort, but something about her green toothbrush next to my blue one in the cup holder makes me grin like a fool.

I rub my cheeks as I brush my teeth, wondering if I can get by without shaving. The little scruff I have doesn’t seem to bother Donna, and I shaved before we left for the airport yesterday—should be fine. I lean a little closer to the mirror, sighing with regret as I notice yet again that my pseudo-beard is peppered with white hair. Most days, I don’t think I look too old, at least not abnormally so, and the last week feels like it took years off my appearance and added to my life expectancy, but the white in my beard makes me feel like people are going to notice when I’m out with Donna and wonder what someone who looks like her is doing with someone who looks like me. Hell, _I’m_ wondering what a woman in her early thirties wants with a guy in his mid forties. Other than teasing me about it, the age gap doesn’t seem to bother her. I didn’t think it’d be a thing for me, but a hot young girlfriend can bring out enough insecurities to almost negate the fact that it makes me feel like some kind of superman. 

I stagger out of the bathroom and dig around in my bureau, finding another pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. I hop around for a minute as I try to pull on the pants, grateful that said hot young girlfriend isn’t in the room to see me look like a loser at this particular moment, before I manage to get myself half dressed. The smell of coffee brewing lures me out to the kitchen before I can manage the rest. The sight that greets me almost knocks me off my feet.

It’s not even anything monumental—just Donna standing at the counter by the coffeemaker, looking like she belongs here.

“I put your vacation stuff in with mine,” she says without turning around, her uncanny ability to sense when I’m near making me grin. “Hope you don’t mind. Seemed less time-consuming than separate loads. I called CJ and she said to come over whenever. So far, she hasn’t been called into work and only has plans to lounge around in her underwear all day. I’m only mostly sure she’s kidding about that last part.”

“How long was I in there?” I ask, impressed she can accomplish so much in such a short amount of time. I take a few steps forward and slide my arms around her waist. “Help yourself to whatever,” I tell her teasingly, tugging at the edges of one of my zip-up sweatshirts she’s now wearing.

“I was cold,” she answers defensively. “I’m always cold, and it’s November. Just the fact that you’re traipsing around here without a shirt on makes me cold.”

I let go of her long enough to drag my t-shirt over my head, pulling her back to me as quickly as possible. “Better?”

She puts her hands over mine, drawing my arms around her tighter. “Marginally.”

“I’ll be your hot water bottle,” I promise, pressing my lips to her ear. “I’m happy to keep you warm.”

She ducks her head, my breath tickling her, and turns in my arms, gazing at me with a twinkle in her eyes. “You know what I like about you, Josh?”

I can only imagine where this is going. “What’s that?”

“You have almost no food in your apartment—not even staples like canned vegetables or boxes of pasta—but you have three different types of coffee and no less than ten different containers of powdered creamer in varying states of use.”

I grin, leaning down slightly to kiss her. “I have my priorities straight.”

“You’re an overgrown child is what you are.” She kisses me again and pulls back, hoisting herself onto the counter next to the coffeemaker. “And on that note, since you don’t have anything here, you’re buying me breakfast.”

I lift my eyebrow at her, amused. “Oh, I am, am I? I just bought you a vacation in Hawaii and now I get to buy you breakfast?”

“That’s what happens when you invite a woman to spend the night and don’t have any food on hand.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say something snarky along the lines of me not actually inviting her to spend the night, but when we got in the cab last night, I gave the driver my address. That may not be an explicit invitation, but I’d agree that it was an invitation nonetheless. It’s also completely true that I have next to nothing in regards to food, and that makes me a terrible host. Still, old habits die hard and I can’t help but tease her a bit. “I should make you buy me breakfast.”

“I should take you to Safeway, teach you how to shop for groceries. It’s not a crime to keep food on hand, Josh.”

“If I start grocery shopping, think how the local takeout places will suffer.”

“It’s true what they say—not all superheroes wear capes.”

I snicker, and her silly grin lights up her entire face. “I like to play my part in the local economy.”

“Then find a local grocery store,” she counters. “Think of the money you’ll save by cooking a meal at home once a week.”

“It’s no fun cooking for myself,” I answer.

She rolls her eyes. “I can probably guarantee a dinner companion at least one night a week.”

“Sounds promising.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “I could be convinced to learn about this thing you call grocery shopping.”

“How magnanimous.” She nudges me with her foot. “You still owe me breakfast.”

I lean in and give her a quick kiss. “Deal.”

“You’re a real hard sell, you know that?”

I shrug shamelessly and grab one of the creamers off the counter, adjusting the cup of coffee she poured me to my liking. She watches me, swinging her feet a little, her own mug clutched to her chest, and I can’t help but feel overwhelmed with…something. Nothing bad, but it’s still…overwhelming. I can only manage a couple of sips before I put the mug down, moving to stand between her legs. She barely manages to put down her own mug before I wrap my arms around her, propping my chin on her shoulder. She hugs me in response, her fingers stroking the nape of my neck. “You okay?” she whispers.

“I love you,” I answer, squeezing her tighter.

She presses a kiss to my shoulder. “I love you, too.”

I can’t help the rush I get at hearing those words. I hope I always feel a little light-headed when she tells me that. “Move in with me.”

Her entire body freezes. “What?”

“Move in with me,” I repeat, knowing without a doubt that I want Donna to be here all the time.

“Josh…that’s crazy.”

“Why?”

“ _Why?_ You’re kidding, right? You’re asking me why it’s crazy to move in with you when we just started dating about a week ago?” She pushes away from me, her hands on my shoulders to keep me from pulling her back. Her eyes are as big as saucers and she’s already breathing faster.

“Did we, though?”

“Did we?”

“Did we really _just_ start dating?”

“Did we…Josh, I was _there_.”

“Yeah, but haven’t we sort of been dating for years?”

“No!”

“Well, it’s not like we need to get to know each other. You know more about me than anyone ever has, and I’m pretty comfortable saying the same about you.”

“Josh…”

“It’s not like I’m not going to take you out on dates and stuff just because we’re living together. I just want you here every morning, like this.”

“We don’t have to live together for me to be here every morning.”

I cock my head at her, a little confused. “What—do you want to stay in CJ’s guestroom indefinitely?”

“I hadn’t planned on it. I was just going to stay there until I could get my bearings and give enough notice to Shannon—”

“Who?”

“Twitchy chick subletting my apartment?”

I get the feeling she’s told me that name before and I must have forgotten it. “Have you even told her you’re back?”

“No, I haven’t called her yet.”

“Any particular reason why?”

She makes a face at me. “Well, she knew I was working on the campaign, and I can’t imagine her not being aware that we have a new president.”

“But you haven’t called her.”

“I think it’s safe to assume she knows I’m back in town and that she should be looking for a new place.”

“But you haven’t called her.”

“Thanks for the recap.”

“You haven’t—”

“I’ve been busy! I didn’t think about it on election night, obviously, and even getting back here for the funeral, I didn’t think about it until I needed somewhere to stay. Then everything got so crazy with the transition and I kept meaning to call her, but the days got away from me, and we’ve been out of touch with real life for a week.”

I step back from her a little, grabbing my mug again. “So you’re probably figuring you’d give her a month to find somewhere to live, right? You’re too good of a person to tell her to just get out. So that puts you through the middle to end of December. You figured you’d stay at CJ’s that whole time? You really didn’t want to ask me?”

She shrugs, suddenly looking helpless and small on the counter, my clothes nearly swallowing her. “I…”

“We’re at that point, Donna. I want you to stay with me.”

“No, you want me to move in with you,” she corrects. “You didn’t ask me to sleep here for a few nights or until Shannon finds a new place. You said I should move in here.”

“And you should. I want to live with you.”

“It’s too soon, Josh.”

“Okay, let’s say twitchy—uh, Shannon—can’t find somewhere by the end of December. It’s possible, right? Real estate can be tough to come by in DC, even more so when a new administration is coming in. It could take her a couple of months to find something and you’re still not going to kick her out beforehand. Are you going to stay in CJ’s guestroom indefinitely? I know she’s your friend but don’t you think she might want her space back at some point?”

“Are you trying to make me feel bad?”

“No, I’m just trying to help you see how impractical it is.”

“So I should move in with you because it’s practical?”

I sigh and shake my head, taking a deliberate sip of my coffee. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying, if you’re interested in twisting my words around. I just want you here. I want you in the mornings and I want you at night and I want your stuff here with mine. But since you won’t listen to that, I thought maybe you’d like to hear that your current plan is a bit flawed.”

She stares at me, a look I can’t read on her face. Finally, she slides off the counter and rinses out her coffee cup, ducking around me. I watch as she silently grabs our suitcases from the living room and drags them down the hall. I literally scratch my head. What the hell is happening?

I can hear noises down the hall—fortunately nothing slamming or being thrown around, which I take as a good sign—or at least not a terrible sign—so I follow the sounds into my bedroom, leaning against the doorjamb to watch her. Somehow, she’s managed to already make the bed and now she’s getting dressed, which is almost as fascinating as watching her get undressed. Her back is to me, and I have a nearly unobstructed view of her ass, the lace of her underwear just barely covering her. Her arms look like they’re dislocating as she reaches around to her back, hooking her bra. I just spent a week with her while she paraded around in skimpy bikinis and, almost as often, nothing at all, but something about Donna standing around in her underwear in the middle of my bedroom excites me in ways I can’t explain.

“You still have some stuff that’s clean,” she says, her back to me. “But I’m not putting away your clothes.” She pulls a pair of jeans and a shirt out of her suitcase. I walk over to her and grab her hip gently, pulling her into me. I’m more than a little relieved when her hands grab onto the backs of my arms, her body relaxing against mine. I realize I’ve done something wrong, but I’m not entirely sure what. Truthfully, I don’t think she knows, either.

“What are you doing?” I ask, pressing my lips against her forehead. Even when she’s not wearing shoes, she’s almost as tall as I am. I have to admit that I like that we’re on an even playing field and that I don’t have to strain my neck to look at her.

“I’m getting dressed so I can go to CJ’s,” she answers with a shrug. I slide my hands from her hips to her back, letting my fingers wander over her soft skin. She sighs, lifting herself to the balls of her feet and presses a quick kiss to my lips.

“Did you want to go alone, or should I come with you?”

She blinks at me, uncertain. “Uh…that’s up to you, I guess. Like I said, I just need to do boring things.”

“Don’t care. I want to spend time with you.” Part of me is a little surprised that I’m actually vocalizing this stuff, but I’ve spent too much time not saying things to her. I always want to be around her, which has been true for a long time. “We’ll take my car; it’ll go faster.”

“Faster? You in a rush?”

“If we get through all the tedious stuff, then maybe I can convince you to start naked Sunday a little early.”

She snickers, giving me another kiss before disentangling herself. I flop down onto the bed, watching with regret as she pulls on her jeans, though she manages to make that look sexy, too. Her eyebrows lift as she grabs her shirt, eyeing me. “You planning on going out like that?”

“I’m a guy. It takes me two seconds to get dressed.”

She rolls her eyes and just to prove a point, I wait until she’s about to pull on socks before finding clothes, stuffing myself into jeans and a sweater and shoving my feet into sneakers before she finishes tying her own shoes. I grin at her cheekily and she just gives me a look of affectionate disgust. “Men.”

“Charming, aren’t we?”

“Not the word I’d use, but we’ll go with that for now.” She glances at my suitcase, and I swear I can see her twitching. “You’re just going to leave that there, like that?”

“It’ll still be there when we get home.”

Her eyes cut to me when I say “home,” and it hits me that at this moment, “home” is possibly a loaded word. “Or you could just take thirty seconds to put away the half a dozen shirts you never wore.”

I groan, knowing I sound like a petulant child, and I really don’t want to put the stuff away. I lived out of a suitcase for most of a year—my t-shirts and boxers won’t be any worse off by sitting around another couple of hours. She’s also compulsively neat and doesn’t particularly like to leave things lying about when they could just as easily be put away.

My mouth opens just a fraction before I snap it shut again, grabbing my clothes. If I want her to live with me, I have to show her that I’m a lost cause. I’m hers to train in any way she wants and if she wants me to put away a few pieces of clothing, then by God, that’s what I’ll do.

Her eyes grow wide as she watches me, but before she can say anything, a loud buzzing makes me jump. “Clothes are done,” she answers, looking vaguely disgusted as she walks to the doorway. “Have you ever actually used your washing machine?”

“Not that I can recall,” I answer as she disappears, not a hint of sarcasm in my voice. I genuinely don’t know when it was last used. Before the Santos campaign, I regularly sent my laundry out, letting strangers have the honor of starching my shorts. I was never home long enough to even think about doing it myself and it seemed easier to let others do it for me.

I grab the sweatshirt she was wearing—after putting my suitcase in the closet where it belongs—and make my way back through the apartment. I hear a metallic clang followed by the unmistakable sounds of clothes tumbling in a dry and she pops out of the tiny utility room next to the kitchen. “You sure you want to come?”

“You trying to get rid of me?”

“Of course not. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re being dragged along while I run errands.”

“I’m pretty sure you said you were going to take me grocery shopping. Apparently, I need more around here than coffee.” I hold out the sweatshirt to her, offering to help put it on, and she looks a little confused. “I’m assuming you don’t have a winter jacket with you. I didn’t see one on the plane.”

She grimaces in embarrassment, turning to let me help her. “I never even thought about it, I guess. It didn’t feel too bad here when we left, and I don’t even remember if it was cold when we got in last night.”

“It was, and you were,” I answer, turning her around to zip her up. “I was very kind and shared my body heat.” She looks a little amused at my actions, but I just lean down, kissing the tip of her nose. I grab my own jacket, then my keys and wallet and hold open the door for her.


	2. Chapter 2

“Josh, you have got to stop,” she tells me, exasperated, and I finally find a parking spot after circling CJ’s block three times.

“Stop what?” I ask, vaguely distracted as I concentrate on parallel parking.

“The moving in together thing! It was one thing this morning in your kitchen but when we’re out in public—”

“You just looked so adorable—”

“I was ordering donuts and muffins!”

“I know. You were adorable, and I couldn’t help myself. It just fell out.”

“Well, try to keep it in, would you?”

“I make no promises,” I answer with a shrug as I get the car just right. Really, I hadn’t meant to ask again at that moment, but we’d been standing in line at Dunkin Donuts—I’d offered to buy her an actual meal, but she was content with something quick—and she mentioned that we should get some stuff to bring to CJ’s. I was actually overcome with love for her and blurted out, as she was telling the guy behind the counter what she wanted, that she should move in with me. I thought she was going to kill me. Several people in line looked like they could swoon, but Donna looked like she was considering dumping coffee on my head.

I really hope she doesn’t put up this much fight when I ask her to marry me.

That thought actually makes me stop in my tracks for a moment, long enough for her to get out of the car and head up the front stairs of CJ’s building without me. Am I going to propose to her at some point? I wait, expecting that oppressive, suffocating feeling I get whenever someone so much as mentions marriage when I’m in the general vicinity, but it doesn’t happen. Huh.

Who am I kidding? Of course I’m going to ask her. Probably not any time soon, but it’ll happen. If I want to be completely honest with myself, Donna is the only person I’ve ever really been able to picture spending my life with, in any capacity. A week of little else but sex will give you some clarity about the direction of your life.

I snap myself out of my stupor and hurry after her, catching up as we make our way into the building. CJ must have alerted her detail that we were coming because they don’t give us too much grief, though I do mentally cringe when it occurs to me that this going to my life soon.

The door flies open, CJ’s broad grin greeting us just before she yanks Donna in for a hug. “You’re so tan!” she exclaims, and I suppose she is, at least compared to how fair she is normally. Mostly, it’s just freckles that have bunched together. Looks good on her, though.

I’m being pulled in a moment later, clumped into a group hug. “Look at you, Sunshine! You finally unwound a little, huh? Thanks, guys,” she calls out, pulling us all the way into her apartment and pushing the door shut behind us.

“We brought sustenance,” Donna says, holding up the bag as she disentangles herself.

“Great!” CJ answers, putting the food down unceremoniously on the coffee table. “How was Hawaii?”

“Amazing. It was amazing.”

“But how much of the island did you see?”

I can actually see Donna’s cheeks turn pink, and it’s possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. “We saw a lot of things, CJ.”

“That what the kids are calling it these days?”

I can feel myself flush a little, though I’m not entirely sure why. There’s no shame in two people taking a vacation together, or in them having a lot of sex. We deserved it. Maybe it’s the fact that CJ’s taking such joy in it—that’s a little unsettling. “No, seriously. We hiked up a volcano, swam with dolphins, Donna learned how to surf a little.”

“But not you?”

“Are you kidding? One wipeout and I would have been in traction the rest of the trip. She was pretty good at it, though.”

Donna shrugs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and CJ gives her a funny look. “What’s going on?”

“What?” I ask.

CJ squints her eyes. “Something’s weird.”

I look at Donna in confusion. “Maybe it’s because we’re not stressed to the breaking point right now?”

“That’s not it.”

“Is it the whole ‘together’ thing? I could see how that would throw people off after all this time.”

“No, that seems normal. I don’t know—something’s off with you two.”

Donna tenses beside me, her eyes wider than normal, but she doesn’t say anything. I shrug, trying to appear casual, but I can feel myself a little on edge all of a sudden.  
“Everything fine, CJ,” Donna finally says, edging toward the kitchen. “You want some coffee with the donuts? I can make coffee if you don’t have any coffee brewed.” Great—now she’s babbling. 

“There’s coffee,” she answers slowly, looking back and forth between us. “Did you two already break up?”

“What?!” I exclaim, almost choking at the thought. “No, of course not!”

“Did you have a fight?”

Donna and I both answer “no,” but apparently not at the right time; I answer almost before the question leaves CJ’s lips, and Donna pauses for just a second too long.

“Seriously, what the hell is going on? I can’t handle the things you two are tossing around.” I frequently forget how good she is at reading a room, and how after almost seven years as Press Secretary, she’s picked up on body language and facial cues almost better than someone who’s actually trained in the field. “Are you pregnant?”

I actually choke this time—I don’t know why. Between the condoms and whatever it is she told me she uses—Depo something—and the fact that we’ve been sleeping together for less than a month, the odds of pregnancy are fairly slim. Still, I wasn’t expecting her to say it.

Donna snickers, though, but I suspect mostly at my reaction. “No, not hardly. Anyway,” she says, wandering back in with two cups of coffee, and I can tell by the tone of her voice that she’s trying to change the subject. “I just wanted to grab my laundry.”

“So you said on the phone,” CJ answers, accepting her mug cautiously.

“Right. I need to grab my dry-cleaning, too, and find somewhere to take it.” She takes a tiny sip of the coffee, and I open my mouth to protest about being the only one going without, when she hands me her cup, offering to share. If that’s not the definition of true love, I don’t know what is.

“Don’t worry about that stuff,” CJ says, grabbing a donut out of the bag. “I sent your suits and things with mine.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I had to get my own stuff cleaned; no big deal. I figured it’d be one less thing to worry about when you got back.” I pass the mug back to Donna, and CJ’s eyes go back and forth between us. “Seriously—what’s going on?”

“Nothing at all,” Donna assures her, smiling broadly. “I’ve got to drag him to a grocery store after this because he has less than nothing on hand.”

“Not true,” I disagree. “I have a wide variety of coffee and creamers.”

Her arm slides around my back, her hand slipping under my coat, and her fingers tickle at me playfully. “Charming, isn’t he?” she asks CJ, though Donna looks pretty charmed right now. “I’m just gonna grab my stuff,” she tells me.

“Need any help?”

“No, it shouldn’t take me long.”

She starts to move away but I can’t help pulling her back and giving her a quick kiss. She looks a little surprised, and I’ll admit that I am, too. I’m not usually one for public displays of affection, but I can’t seem to help it with her. In Hawaii, we held hands and kissed and did all the coupley things people do on vacation. I never gave much thought as to how that would play out at home. Turns out I want to touch her in some way at all times. It seems I’m the clingy sort.

CJ’s eyes go wide at the display; it’s one of those things that would throw off anyone who’s known us for a while. Donna just grins at me as she walks away, and I’m overcome with that intense love for her again.

“I asked her to move in with me,” I say to our friend, whose eyes nearly fall out of her head.

“What?!” she yelps. At the same time, Donna stops in her tracks, whipping around to stare at me.

“Josh!”

I’m still trying to figure out what I did wrong. “She won’t do it, though.” That actually makes my insides twist painfully. I’m finding that I really, really want to live with her.

“Oh, my God!” Donna exclaims.

“Oh, my God!” CJ echoes, though a smile is pulling at her lips.

“You’ve really got to knock it off,” Donna tells me, her face oddly flushed.

I just shrug at her, not at all sorry. She stares at me for a while before turning with a sigh, disappearing down the hall.

CJ’s smile has become a full-on grin. “You asked Donna to move in with you?”

“I did.”

“Like an actual grownup?”

“So it would seem.”

“Kind of fast, isn’t it, slugger?”

I cross my arms over my chest, glaring at her. “After almost nine years, I don’t think so.”

“It’s not like the two of you have been dating for nine years.”

“No, but I want to live with her. I know that after spending a week with her.”

CJ just smiles at me goofily, all of her teeth showing. “Why Josh Lyman…”

“Look, Ceej, I love her. I’m completely crazy about her. I don’t think that’s any big secret. I really don’t see any point in dancing around each other for another decade, pretending we don’t want the things we want. We’ve wasted too much time pretending. I’m completely ready to start life with her. She belongs with me. I belong with her. It’s stupid for us to be apart.”

She looks a little taken aback by my declaration, and I don’t know if I can blame her. “Wow, Josh. That was almost romantic.”

“I’m in full-on boyfriend mode right now. I’m in this for the long haul.”

“I can see that. But, she doesn’t want to live with you?”

I shrug then run my hands through my hair in frustration. “Apparently not. I have no idea why. She said it’s too soon, which is crazy. I could understand if we’d just met. Hell, even if she’d never lived on her own, but she’s been doing that for a while now. It doesn’t make sense for her to stay here with you if she’s really just going to be at my place. Same with the woman who’s subletting Donna’s apartment—why kick her out when Donna’s not going to be there much?”

“You’re awfully confident about how much time she wants to spend with you.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t feel like I’m being cocky, though. I think she wants to be there with me, too.”

“Well, keep trying. You’ll wear her down eventually. You’re a politician, as I recall. You’re pretty good with the convincing arguments.”

“I don’t exactly want to wear her down. This would be preferable if she actually wanted to cohabitate.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“I hope so.”

CJ glances down the hall, but there’s no evidence of Donna. “I can’t believe after all this time, though, it’s finally happened.”

“You didn’t see it coming?”

“I don’t know that I gave it that much thought, to be honest.”

That surprises me a little. “C’mon—you’re telling me that even when you were Press Secretary you never worried about something happening with me and Donna?”

“When I wasn’t worried about real news and politics, sure, it might have crossed my mind occasionally. I didn’t worry about it, though.”

“Really? There was no plan in place in case I ever decided to schtup my assistant?”

She rolls her eyes, looking disgusted. “Again, we were more concerned with real problems. Your love life was very rarely a factor.”

“Well, that’s a little disappointing.”

“That’s quite the ego you’ve got on yourself, there, Josh.”

“Hey, I’m just thinking how it would have looked for the administration.”

“I don’t think people cared nearly as much you want to believe they did. If you’d been married to someone else and something happened with her, yeah, it would have been a thing, but you were both single. There’s no strict policy at the White House that says a boss can’t date their assistant, though I don’t think it’s encouraged. We spent most of our time there—it seemed more likely for us to comingle than to meet people outside of work.”

I shove my hands in my pockets. “Humph.”

She shakes her head at how put out I seem. “I don’t know—maybe some people would have talked, but certainly not anyone you worked with. And all those people who’d have talked…well, they were already talking. They always had something to say about us. The White House would have backed you up, if need be. If nothing else, we would have told anyone asking that we don’t comment on staffers’ lives. No one who matters—no one who cares about either of you—would have cared.”

“That’s comforting, I guess.”

“For what it’s worth, I think we all kind of expected it to happen for sure.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She shrugs, taking a long drink of her coffee. “Seemed inevitable, but we didn’t place bets or anything.”

“You’re really crushing my spirit here, CJ.”

She lets out a deep, long-suffering sigh. “I suppose it might have caused a stir of some sort, at least for her. You know how people like to talk. But if you’d hooked up at some point during a crisis, like when all that stuff happened with Zoey, no one would have ever known. Truthfully, we all figured it was happening after Gaza. I assumed that when you came back, you were together. I mean, who drops everything to fly across the globe for someone who’s ‘only’ an assistant?”

In all the time that’s passed since then, I don’t know that I’ve ever quite thought about it in that way. I went to Donna at that point because there was nowhere else I could possibly be. I suppose to anyone paying attention, flying across the world to your coworker’s bedside would look…questionable. “I guess that’s fair.”

She shuffles her feet for a second, looking mildly uncomfortable, before she quirks up the corner of her mouth. “I have to know—why _didn’t_ you two get together then?”

“I’m an idiot,” I answer immediately. “Instead of saying anything when it happened, I let everything go back to normal and tried not to think about it too much. Worked out real well, huh?”

“Well, one could argue that you might not be here now if you’d done anything about it back then. There are a lot of things that would be wildly different right now.”

Before I can ask what she’s talking about, Donna comes shuffling down the hall, overstuffed laundry basket under her arm, dry cleaning bags tossed on top of it. She has what looks like an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. Without thinking, I hurry over to her and grab the stuff out of her arms.

“Chivalry’s not dead,” CJ says with a smile. “You have everything?”

“Everything?” Donna repeats, blanching a little, even though her fingers automatically reach out to stroke my hip, a little gesture of thanks that I’ve found she likes to do.

“Yeah, you know—your stuff. Any of your clean clothes stuffed in the drawers, shampoo, that sort of thing.”

“You’re kicking me out?”

CJ gives her an odd look, tilting her head. “You’re not exactly homeless, Donna. Don’t you want to stay with your boyfriend?”

“Yeah, don’t you want to stay with your boyfriend?” I ask, knowing I’m pushing it.

She shoots me a death glare. “At the moment…”

“You really want to leave a few bits and pieces here when we all know you have no intention of spending any time here? I’m supposed to believe that you’re going to sleep here alone instead of having copious amounts of sex—sex, I might add, that you two of all people deserve to be having lots and lots of.”

I’ll be damned—CJ’s on my side with this. Not that I want Donna to feel like she’s backed into a corner with living with me, but it’s nice to know CJ’s apparently going to help in any way she can.

Donna, for her part, looks a bit more like she’s on the fence. I lean in and kiss her cheek. “I’ll just take this stuff down to the car.”

I try to keep my pace slow, giving them time to talk or for CJ to work her magic or whatever needs to happen. I pop open the trunk of my car and pause, trying to make myself be honest about why Donna moving in with me is such a big deal right now, and also why she’s fighting it so much.

The first part is easy—I want to live with her because I truly and deeply love her. Admitting it to myself was a lot harder than telling her, but being with Donna is the only thing in my life that has ever felt this right. I want her next to me when I wake up, I want her voice to be the last thing I hear before I go to sleep. I want the stupid fights we’re going to have because she’s stolen yet another article of my clothing, or I’ve left everything lying around after coming in from work and I’ve been a bachelor too long, or because she’s cold and I’m hot and we’ll never get the temperature right. We really have wasted too much time apart. We’ve been friends, we’ve watched each other date other people and have despised it, we’ve been through hell and back repeatedly and now we’re at this point. I don’t want to blow it. I want her to know that I’m all in.

That just leaves me with wondering why she’s so freaked out right now. Under normal circumstances, if we’d just met a few weeks ago, living together would be extreme. But…it’s been almost ten years. I know her. She knows me even better. There’s absolutely no need for that stuff in between because we’ve already done it. I meant it before when I told her I still want to take her out places, but I don’t think we need to do the traditional “dating” just to find out if we’re compatible. We already know we are. We work together on every level.

I close the trunk and head back to the building. There’s a certain irony in all this—just a couple of weeks ago at Leo’s funeral, she accused me of finding this thing with us awkward and hard to navigate, and she wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do, and she was so confident. Now, she’s unsure and almost timid, nearly panicking at the mere suggestion of moving in with me.

The security detail only harasses me for a few minutes this time, probably more because they have nothing to do than they think I’m suddenly planning an attack on the nation’s Chief of Staff. Yet another reason for Donna to live with me—if she’s just a “guest,” she’s probably going to have to deal with this nonsense every single time she leaves the front door, whereas if she’s a resident, no one will be able to question her presence.

I find Donna and CJ standing together in the kitchen, speaking in hushed tones. I probably don’t want to know what they’re talking about; with the two of them, it could be anything, co-conspirators that they are. I recognize the suitcase Donna dragged with her for months on the campaign trail parked right in the middle of the living room. I pick it up and look at her, my eyebrows going up in question. She never pauses her conversation, but her lip quirks up at me, her eyes twinkling a little, and I take that as a good sign. I drag the suitcase downstairs; she’s taking her belongings from CJ’s, she still hasn’t let what’s-her-face know she wants her apartment back. I can work with this stuff.

I can’t help but wonder, though, if what CJ said is true—that no one ever cared if something happened between Donna and myself. All this time I’ve been telling myself it would have been a “thing” if we’d gotten together while working under President Bartlet, but to know now that no one was paying attention, to know that we fought it for so long, that we caused ourselves and each other so much pain and aggravation, and all of that could have been avoided. We wasted so much time.

One of the many things we talked about on vacation was that these were not new feelings for each other. In fact, these are decidedly old feelings we have for each other. She wasn’t able to pinpoint when exactly she started to care for me anymore than I could figure out when I started to feel things for her. All I do know is that if I’d had any idea that falling for my assistant wouldn’t have meant the end of the world, I can’t imagine we would have waited more than a year or two for this to happen. 

So much time, just gone. It does make me appreciate being with Donna more than ever, though.

When I get back inside—with just as much harassment from the security detail this time as before—Donna and CJ are laughing, and I’m positive that I don’t know want to know what they’re talking about. I’ve found that, typically, when a male walks back in on a conversation where women are now laughing, they’re usually laughing at the male’s expense. In this case, ignorance is bliss and I can imagine they’re talking about literally anything else.

“Don’t sit down,” Donna says, and I freeze mid-sit. She’s not even facing me, and no matter how many times she does it—even how many times she’s done it today already—it never ceases to fascinate me.

“But—”

“Josh.”

“I just want a donut,” I tell her, aware that comes out closer to a whine than a statement of fact.

“I’m not stopping you,” she answers, finally facing me. “Just take it to go.”

“Aren’t we—”

“CJ has to go into work.”

I stand up again, wincing in sympathy. “That sucks.” As someone who is now on his second consecutive Saturday off, and as someone who hasn’t had a Saturday off before this in more than a year, I can relate.

“Yeah, well, my tour of duty is almost over. You’re willingly starting all over again. Working Saturdays are all yours.”

I grimace again, but mostly because now that I’ve gotten a taste of freedom, going back to that grind is going to be tough. Though, that’s something else Donna and I talked about in Hawaii—we both want to take some time to be humans; independently, but mostly with each other. We’re both aware that relationships take work, and how quickly things can deteriorate in this town when you let your work consume you. We know that in our jobs, leaving at five or six or even seven isn’t going to be possible all the time, nor can we guarantee weekends off, but we’re going to do our best to try. I know it’s going to be different with Santos—he has young kids he’s going to want to spend time with, not to mention his wife, who’ll have no trouble laying down the law where work is concerned. Still, it’s going to be tough and it’s going to be an adjustment, though there is one bright spot. If Donna doesn’t move in with me, we’ll never see each other, despite working in the same building. That’s got to be a point in the “live together” column.

“I won’t let him work too hard,” Donna tells her, moving over to slide her arm around my waist. “I have ways to de-stress him, too.”

“And that’s all the detail I need about _that_ ,” CJ says, making a disgusted face.

“Are you sure?” Donna asks, grinning broadly. “Because I’ve done—”

“Donna!” I exclaim, the hand I’d had draped across her shoulders coming up to clamp over her mouth. She laughs at me, though CJ looks disturbed.

“Please just get out of here,” she tells us, pointing at the door. “We’ll make time to catch up soon, I promise. And Donna, you know you’re always welcome here when he pisses you off.”

“Gee, thanks, Ceej,” I grumble sarcastically, though I know it’s inevitable that I’ll make Donna that mad before too long.

“Thank you for everything, CJ” Donna says, moving my hand.

“Anything, anytime, anywhere. You’re the little sister I never got to have.” I’m a little surprised—and honestly touched—at the declaration, and she pulls Donna in for a hug. I could swear I hear her whisper, “Be happy,” in Donna’s ear, and Donna nods. “And you,” she says to me, reaching out to ruffle my hair as Donna disentangles herself. “If you ever hurt her, I’ll kill you and no one will ever find the pieces.” She grins at me, though it’s menacing and predatory. “Got it?”

I nod vigorously, my voice caught in my throat. Despite the horrifyingly graphic threat, she’s wishing us happiness and giving us her blessing. I didn’t know how much I needed that from her until she said it.

We make our way out of the building, pausing so I can open the car door for her. Instead of getting in, Donna wraps her arms around me, leaning up a little to plant a kiss on my lips. “Thank you for bringing my stuff down here. You didn’t have to schlep back and forth, but I appreciate that you did anyway.”

I press my forehead to hers. I’ve never been as happy in my life as I am in this moment. “Donna, please move in with me.”

“Josh!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most likely, there would have been some sort of stink about a Deputy Chief of Staff dating his assistant, but it occurred to me that it might be interesting to see a different take on it. Like, what if no one really cared?


	3. Chapter 3

I’m aware that at some point in my life, I used to go grocery shopping, or at least something similar to it, but I’ll be the first to admit that it has not been at the top of my priority list for probably a decade. I really have mostly lived on takeout, restaurants, or whatever I could find fast and easy at whichever convenience store or corner market appeared to be open.

Donna’s not wrong when she says I’m an overgrown man-child. I chalk it up to genuinely being on my own for so long. I’m sure if my mom had moved to DC instead of Florida, I would’ve had a steady stream of home-cooked meals. Back in the day, Donna did her best to try to get me to eat what she called “real food,” but since she was rarely around me when not at the office, she couldn’t enforce it. Simplicity was the key. Of course, if she agrees to live with me, she can make sure I’m not eating like a college kid. Granted, taking care of me isn’t exactly an incentive to live together, but it’s worth a shot.

Meanwhile I’m having a more difficult time figuring out how to shop “properly” than a man my age ought to. Everything I pick up, I’m told I can’t have.

“What exactly is wrong with ramen?” I ask, holding up several packages.

“What’s right with it?” she counters, looking mildly horrified.

“It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s cheap, it never goes bad,” I rattle off.

“Josh, do you know how much sodium is in that crap? It’s only suitable for college kids, and that’s only because it’s all they can afford. It’ll make your blood pressure skyrocket, and with the amount of stress you’re under on a regular basis, it’ll put you in an early grave, something I’d really like to avoid, thank you very much.”

Properly chastised, I put the noodles back on the shelf. “But I like it,” I say, though I’m not sure why.

“If you like this kind of thing, we can make it pretty easily. Granted, it won’t be as cheap, but what you pay for up front, you’ll gain in years to your life expectancy.”

“We can make it?” I ask doubtfully.

“Of course we can. If we can’t get the supplies here, well, we live in one of the most diverse cities in the country. We can find an Asian market and get stuff there. It’ll be healthier and I promise you it’ll taste better.”

I’ll have to take her word for it, but if there’s anyone I know that could figure out how to make that stuff, it’s Donna. She’s nothing if not tenacious.

“Not that, either!” she exclaims and I freeze, realizing my hand has wrapped around a can without my knowledge.

“What’s wrong with Chef Boyardee?!”

“You have to be kidding me! It’s disgusting. It doesn’t taste like anything resembling Italian food, and it too is loaded with sodium. Do you care at all about living past age fifty?”

I cringe, realizing that number is a lot closer than I’m comfortable with. “Yes.”

“Josh…” she pauses, looking genuinely pained. “I hate to sound like your mother, but this stuff will actually kill you. Not if you eat it once in a while, but if you try to exist on it, you won’t exist for very long. I have a very vested interest in keeping you around for as long as possible.”

I don’t respond to that, and she doesn’t expand upon it, but we both know the implications. We didn’t have a conversation about future specifics on our vacation—even Donna, the one who instated the deadline to begin with, said she didn’t want to jump ahead that far, that she wanted to try to enjoy what’s happening with us organically and not force a strict timeline on our relationship—but we both seemed content with the prospect of forever. I established to myself just a little while ago that I fully intend to marry her at some point. I can only imagine that she’ll want kids at some point. While that thought paralyzes me in the immediate sense, I can see the appeal of it in our future. It would seem she wants me around for that, and I certainly want to live to see our kids graduate high school.

“I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass with this,” I tell her, reaching out to grab her hand. “This is just not something I’ve ever given much thought to.”

One side of her mouth curves up into a little smile, and she squeezes my fingers. “You’re really terrible at being an adult, you know.”

“I’m aware.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “I just love you so much…” she says softly, the elevator music pumping through the store almost drowning her out. “We just got here; I’m not willing to let you go without a fight.”

“Donna,” I grab her other hand and pull her closer, completely oblivious to the other shoppers around us. “I’m going to fight you on this because I don’t know any better, but I don’t have some kind of death wish. I appreciate that you care enough to make me want to eat stuff that’s not garbage. I really, really, love you and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make you happy. Even if I have to eat healthy.”

She leans forward, pressing her temple against my cheek, and we pause like that for a few moments. I find I really don’t care if the people around us are annoyed that we’re being publicly affectionate or if we’re blocking anyone’s way. We need the moment.

“You know, I only eat this stuff for convenience. Meals for one and all that.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about meals for one,” she whispers. “But if for some reason you actually like this sort of thing, we can make this, too.”

“Doesn’t food, you know, eventually go bad?”

She gently whacks my arm and straightens up. “You do know what freezers are for, right?”

“Uh…ice cream?”

“Fair point. But you can actually cook food ahead of time and freeze it for later.”

“This sounds vaguely familiar.”

“Maybe that’s because it’s what I did for years while working for you. Not all of us had the budget to eat out every day. If you want, we can even make little individual pasta things like the crap you eat so you can still feel child-like. Even if you used jar sauces, it’s still infinitely healthier. If you home-made the sauce, though, you’d wonder why you ever ate this junk.”

“I can just see me making spaghetti sauce. I’d burn the place down.”

She gives me a funny look, grabbing a few boxes of pasta off the shelf. “Josh…you do remember that I’m Italian, right? I grew up helping my mom make sauces and things like that. I still do it when I have the chance. I know it’s easy to forget what I come from, given that I’m pale and blonde, but I swear…the knowledge is there.”

I chuckle a little, mostly because other than being vaguely aware of the very Italian-sounding first name “Donnatella,” I really do forget that she’s Italian. I don’t think much about it, to be completely honest. She’s just Donna to me. “I never thought about it in relation to you making food before.”

“I can actually make my own pasta, too, when I’m feeling motivated.”

“Well, if I wasn’t in love with you before, I certainly am now.”

“I suppose it’s true what they say,” she says, turning back to the cart and pushing forward.

“What’s that?” I ask, catching up and grabbing onto the handle next to her.

“The way to a man’s heart really is through his stomach.”

“I can think of a few other ways to get to my heart, for the record.”

"That’s not your heart you’re thinking about, Tiger.”

I chuckle and let go of the handle, running my hand down her back for a second before I grab my cup of coffee out of the basket. Something fascinating I’ve discovered about Safeway is that it has a Starbucks in it—all of them do, Donna tells me, at least all the ones she’s seen—and all of their grocery carts have cup holders. Some head honcho somewhere understands that we’re all caffeine junkies who can’t make it through a shopping trip without coffee. They’re right. I’d barely walked through the door before I nearly floated over to the Starbucks kiosk and bought a cup for each of us. Also, I’m probably being overly sentimental, but I like how our two cups look in the designated spots in the cart.

I’ll say this much about this whole grocery shopping thing—Donna’s efficient. Not that this is some huge revelation. I’ve know this about her for years. It shouldn’t surprise me that our entire excursion to the grocery store has taken about twenty minutes. She knows the layout of the store and wastes no time in getting what she thinks I need to get. It’s a cross between amusing and charming, and I can’t help but love that she wants to take care of me in this way. I’m sure I’ll wind up footing the bill for all this, but I really don’t care. Again, if this is something that will convince her to move in, I’ll all for it.

I sigh, reaching up to run my fingers through her hair. She shivers a little but smiles over her shoulder. I sound like a broken record even in my own head, but this feels right. Living together feels like what we should do. I know it with more certainty than I’ve ever known anything, other than I’m completely, head-over-heels in love with her. And it’s not that I want to wear her down—I just want her to know that I’m serious. I’m not asking because we’re still in that honeymoon stage of things. I want the stupid stuff like grocery shopping and planning what we’re having for dinner, and running errands together. The little things.

She steers us toward the self-checkout, something that, despite her teasing, I know all about. The self-check lines are usually the only ones open should I happen to manage to get to a grocery store before they close. We set up a nice system of me handing over items and her scanning and bagging, her lovely analytical mind sorting everything into different bags. She really is very cute.

“Seriously, Donna,” I say, watching her punch in numbers as she weighs produce.

“Seriously, Josh,” she answers distractedly.

“Move in with me.”

She freezes and I watch her take deep breaths. I could swear I can see her hands shake. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I just want to live with you. Not a crime, last I checked.”

“No—you’re right. It’s great. Let’s do it. You know what else would be a super idea?” she asks, studiously avoiding looking at me as she finishes scanning the last of the groceries.

“What’s that?”

“Let’s get married! Sounds like a great idea, right? Because what else do you do after you’ve been sleeping with someone for two weeks? Other than move in with each other, obviously.”

“Do you want to get married?” I ask, trying to ignore the weird feeling in my stomach.

“Sure!” she exclaims, taking my credit card out of my hand. “We probably can’t do it today, of course, since it’s Saturday and we’d never find a judge, but maybe we can squeeze it in on our lunch break Monday.”

“Sarcasm. Cute.”

“Of course it’s sarcasm, Josh! I don’t want to get married!”

Amazingly, that feels like a kick to the gut. “You don’t? Never?”

She pauses, looking at me apologetically. “No, not never. I mean, one day, it’d be nice, I think. Being married at some point…that’s not the point. The point is that it’s too soon to get married, and it’s too soon to live with you. So, please, just…stop.”

I remain silent as we make our way outside and start to load the bags into the back of the car. I’m starting to feel like there may be something more going on with her about this, but I don’t know how to get to it. I do notice, with some amusement, that she stuffs my credit card into her pocket, though whether that’s because it slipped her mind or it’s her way of goading me, I’m not sure. I do know that I’ll at least get to grope her a little when I retrieve it.

It’s a bit alarming and more than a little disgusting that I’m able to be so concerned for her mental state while simultaneously wanting to do unspeakable things to her.

“I’m sorry I’ve upset you,” I finally say as I drop bags haphazardly in the trunk only to watch her rearrange them so they’re secure and don’t roll around, grateful that we swung by the apartment before coming here to drop off her stuff and put in more laundry. I don’t think everything would have fit otherwise.

She shrugs noncommittally, avoiding my gaze.

“You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

She whips around to face me, her eyes huge. “No! Why would you even think that?”

“Latent abandonment issues,” I answer, and now I’m the one avoiding her gaze.

“Josh, I’m not going to leave you,” she whispers, reaching out to put a hand on my arm. “I promise.”

I open my mouth, no sound coming out, but she bites her lip, knowing what I’m thinking. It’s ridiculous for me to think it, truthfully, even though it was just last December that she did just that. I’ve gone round and round over that in my head, arguing with myself that it wasn’t personal, that she didn’t leave me, that she deserved a better job, but the emotional part of me has never cared—I felt abandoned. We’ve talked about it. We talked a little here and there after she joined the Santos campaign and then even more on our vacation. I’m not going to hold it against her—I can’t. She did what she had to do. At the same time, she’s said she can’t help but feel bad for hurting me, no matter how it seemed at the time.

Hell, she thinks I’m still trying to get her back for leaving during the first campaign, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. She always accused me of being mean because I gave her flowers in April, and no matter how many times I told her, she would never believe that the second anniversary is the one that means the most to me. She came back to me. It was important. Even if I couldn’t or wouldn’t say what the time, her coming back and staying is what matters to me. Yes, the February anniversary when we met is also important, and I think going forward it’ll carry more weight, but having her come back and stay was what counted for me. We were already insanely codependent and I’m not kidding when I say that losing her at that point ripped me open, especially to know she’d gone back to that loser whose name I never bothered to learn. Losing her the second time last year almost destroyed me, even though I still don’t want to examine why.

I’m also not so damaged that I think her moving in with me means she’ll never leave me because I know that’s not true. I don’t want to keep her under lock and key. I just know I can be overbearing and now she’s getting frustrated with me, and I can’t help the insecurities I have when it comes to her. I just want her to know what I want. We’ve wasted too much time not telling each other anything and letting moments slip by us and I don’t want to carry on like that. I want her to know where I stand, and that I’m serious about us and our future.

“Josh,” she says with a sigh. She closes the trunk, but I put my hand over hers, stopping her from heading to one of the cart returns. She looks at me for a long moment before sighing again and stepping into me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I’m not going to leave you, especially not for something like. We’ve always argued—always. I can imagine it’s only going to get worse from here on out, at least to a point. We already know the fastest, most efficient ways to hurt each other. But none of that means I’m walking away from us.”

I tighten my arms around her, taking in a deep breath. The soft scent of her shampoo nearly overwhelms me. “I know. I know, I know, I know. I’m paranoid. I just don’t want to lose you again. I can’t take it.”

“You won’t. I promise.” She squeezes me for a second before pulling back and I bend down to capture her lips in a quick kiss. She smiles a little against my mouth before pushing me away gently. “But could you drop this, please? We still have most of the weekend left and I can think about things a lot more interesting to do than argue about living arrangements.”

Low blow—dangling the implication of sex in front of me. We’ve both established over the last week that I lose all control of higher brain functions when she so much as mentions sex. Or looks at me for a moment that could mean she’s thinking about it. Or just her mere existence. She’s essentially a walking aphrodisiac.

I lean in to kiss her again, grabbing the car from her hands to drop it off at one of the corrals, and she playfully smacks my ass as I walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll try to keep this brief, but since someone left an…odd review as a guest, I have no other way of responding. This person doesn’t seem to like the characters much (I could have been interpreting that incorrectly, though), so why they’re reading Josh & Donna fic, I’ll never know, but also told me that my characterizations were off. …Okay. I disagree. I think my characterizations are fine. I’ve read a lot of stories (in many fandoms, I should clarify) that completely change well-established characters, turning strong women into weeping damsels in distress who need constant rescuing, and turning nice, caring guys into weird, domineering assholes who treat people like shit and are revered for it. I mean, it’s fanfiction. It’s a place to read and write things that wouldn’t happen in a show/book/movie/whatever, and sometimes that means changing characters to fit with whatever persona you want them to have. I don’t feel like I do that. I feel like I stay fairly true to who I’m writing, even if I sometimes go for a less explored element of their personality. But, I will say, if you don’t like what you’re reading…write your fic. I mean that with no malice, either, but the best way to read the story you’re looking for is to write it. That’s why I really got back into it a few years ago. I searched high and low but couldn’t find what I wanted to read, so I wrote it. Or, you know, create an account so I can reach out to you and understand where you’re coming from. Or don’t read stories with characters you don’t like. There’s so many things out there in the world to read—why on earth would you waste time with something you don’t like?
> 
> On a mostly unrelated note, I just finished writing a side-by-side story—basically it’s the same story from two different perspectives (took half as much creativity on my part, too), but I don’t know which one to post first. Are people interested in reading from Josh’s POV, or Donna’s POV to start? This isn’t a bid for reviews—if you want to message me privately if you have an opinion, I’m into that. If not…I’ll figure it out somehow. I also just finished writing a companion piece to So Far From Here, which also took little creativity on my part, but the idea wouldn’t leave me alone. I have to get that one and a couple others typed up, though.
> 
> Also, I promise there's a method to my madness. There usually is. I wrote myself into a sticky situation and wasn't sure how I was going to get out of it, but it'll get there.


	4. Chapter 4

Donna’s body trembles beneath mine, her breath hot and erratic against my skin as she buries her face in my neck. I press a kiss to her shoulder, the last swells of my orgasm still charging through me. Her fingers dig into my back, clutching me tightly for a few more seconds before going limp. I brace myself above her, trying to balance on my elbows a little so I don’t completely crush her.

She reaches up and tugs me down anyway, wrapping her limbs around me. I tilt my head back and we grin at each other for a few seconds before kissing slowly. My body relaxes against hers, our sweaty skin sticking together in places. This part about being with Donna is not something I think I’ll ever get used to. It’s not like being with anyone else. I hope I never get used to it. I want to always feel this amazed after we make love.

I plant little kisses on her neck and roll off of her slowly, sprawling out on my back. Our chests heave in tandem for a few seconds before falling out of sync, and I reach down, peeling off and disposing of the condom. She shifts next to me, turning onto her side, and I roll over as quickly as I can, pulling her close to me. Her arm wraps around my shoulders, her fingers coming up to stroke the hair at the back of my neck.

Neither of us speak for now. I don’t know if I’d trust my voice at the moment. She really does things to me that no one else ever has. I shouldn’t be so surprised that she’s the best sex I’ve ever had.

I can feel her heart pounding against her chest. I run my fingers gently up and down her spine, hoping to help relax her. It’s probably for the best that we’re still trying to compose ourselves right now because my thoughts are still going in a million different directions. Focusing on the moment and all of the sensations running through me right now is actually way too intense. Everything has to be buffered by stranger, calmer moments.

Despite our at-times-rocky start to the morning, we managed to salvage the rest of the day. It was filled with odd domesticity. 

We got home from the grocery store, and I essentially stood back and watched as she put everything away in some sort of order that made sense to her and that I only hope I can learn at some point. She actually did the magical food prep she told me about, managing to freeze lunches for at least two weeks—or one, if half of them are hers—and also dinner for all of the weeknights. It was actually pretty impressive. Watching Donna work was like watching some sort of cooking show; she explained every step to me and why it was important, what the nutritional value was compared to my typical lunch of two Red Bulls and Starbucks. I stayed out of her way as much as possible, knowing I would just hinder more than help, though I did lift and turn over and cut up anything she asked me to. Somehow, in the process of all that, she managed to finish washing, drying, and folding laundry, even putting it away instead of leaving it in the laundry basket like normal people. When I marveled at her ability to do so much at one time, she told me she’s this efficient because her downtime when working with me was limited, so she had to be able to do everything at one time. Hurtful, but fair.

The whole process, though, was somehow both terrifying and a major turn on. I truly had no idea one person could be so efficient, juggling so many tasks at once, and it occurred to me that if she wanted to take over the world, she wouldn’t need much more than a package of sticky notes, a pen, and a cell phone. If the American population were at all smart, they’d elect her next time. She’d have the country whipped into shape in about a month and a half.

Still, watching her handle so much with such ease made me think wildly inappropriate things, and for reasons I couldn’t begin to understand. It briefly crossed my mind , watching her do at least three different things at one time, that she’s going to make a great mother someday. I pushed that thought away as quickly as it appeared, though. No matter how innocent and generic it was, that moment almost caused a malfunction in my head. Moving in together is a big yes. All that other stuff…I’m not quite there yet.

Somehow, after all that, we actually cleaned up the apartment. I’m still not sure how it happened, either. I think it started with Donna nonchalantly sorting stacks of mail on my coffee table, opening up bills, writing checks for me, and tossing out everything else. Then we were at the little dining room table I have, organizing the paperwork I haven’t thought about for a week, making neat little piles of things that needed immediate attention, things that could be put off for a bit, and the things that I could file away. Before I’d realized it, we’d made our way around the apartment, Donna asking innocent questions about if a certain pile of junk needed to be there, or if I had any objection to some other things being tossed out. Truly, before I’d actually processed what was happening, the entire place had been cleaned. Probably not the deep clean that would satisfy her odd little soul, but enough so the place no longer looks like it exploded. It seems old habits die hard—I’ve never been neat and organized, nor have I cared too much about being so, but Donna always managed to keep me on track, getting my life to a point where she’s created order out of chaos. It’s one of the ways we’ve managed to work so well together for so long. Despite time, distance, and the effort to not let ourselves go back to into those old roles, there are some aspects of our relationship that happen by accident and Donna making sense of my mess is one of them.

Even after all that, I couldn’t quite convince her to just sit down and hang out; she insisted we make dinner. I know I whined like a toddler about it, asking why we couldn’t just order in. Her logic was that we’d spent a week more or less eating out and it would be healthier if we made our own food for once. She also pointed out that we’d just spent a bunch of money on groceries and it was stupid to buy more food. I very nearly mentioned that there was no “we” in the money that was spent, but some instinct told me that wouldn’t score any points with her. Not only that, but I wouldn’t win.

It turned out to be a pleasant experience, though I don’t know if I’d admit that to her. We somehow cooked together, and the best part was shocking the hell out of her when she realized I wasn’t a total lost cause in the kitchen and could actually follow a recipe unguided if need be. I’ve just rarely felt the need. Like I told her this morning, cooking for one isn’t my idea of a good time. We ate together at the table like adults, and shared a bottle of wine like fancy adults. Aside from being in Hawaii, I don’t remember the last time I sat down, especially with another human being, at a table and ate a meal that either didn’t come out of Styrofoam while surrounded by paperwork and blaring TVs, or while trying to schmooze some politico or donor into leaning in my direction. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that Donna and I were still completely capable of having a conversation that didn’t involve work while actually being so close to work.

It was actually kind of nice, truth be told, and definitely a reminder to slow down and take my time, especially since we have this thing with us now. If she’s not an incentive to try to leave the office at a moderately decent time as often as possible, nothing is.

We even sat on the couch together after dinner, flipping through channels until we found something that grabbed her attention. Pickings were slim since December is rapidly approaching, and that means Christmas movies as far as the eye can see. I think it was Home Alone, which I vaguely remember seeing at some point, but my attention was mostly focused on the feel of Donna curled against my side. Seriously, how did we put this off for so long? I don’t know if I’ve ever felt anything more pleasant than an evening of domestic bliss with the woman that I love.

Of course, my attention completely shifted about halfway through the movie when she started to feel me up. She pretended to keep it casual by rubbing my thigh, but it didn’t take her long before her hand alternated by disappearing up my shirt to stroke my stomach, and pressing her hand against my groin, smiling as she felt me jump and tighten. We spent the rest of the movie making out like teenagers, sprawled across the couch, though I tried not to give too much thought to the actual teenager mental image. Mostly because when I was sixteen, she was about four years old, and when she was a teenager, I was pushing thirty. That train of thought is creepy. Still and all, seeing as how I was on top of her with my hand shoved down her underwear, the teenage boy that I earlier established that I am was fully in control. I suppose I could use the defense that I really didn’t get to do this stuff when I was a kid, and now I have an insanely hot girlfriend who seems only too willing to let me live our each and every fantasy I’ve ever had.   
I did manage to get her gasping and moaning, calling out my name as she orgasmed before I literally carried her over my shoulder and into my bedroom. Another fantasy I’ve had for some time. She protested weakly about me hurting myself, but wasted no time in yanking off my clothes after I dumped her on the bed.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she says, her voice low, and I pull her closer to me.

“Still basking,” I answer. “Is it just me, or does this get better every time we do it?”

She picks her head up a little, giving me a soft smile, her eyes full of love and affection. “It’s not just you.” She leans in, pressing her lips to mine, and my heart starts to pound again.

“I love you,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to hers. My heart constricts painfully as it thumps, the strange, powerful reaction I have to her taking over.

She smiles even wider, and I can see her eyes grow a little watery. “I’ll never get tired of hearing that,” she tells me. She reaches down and grabs my hand off her hip, bringing it to her lips. She kisses the palm before pressing it against her chest, the gesture so oddly touching that I feel myself get a little misty, too.

“I’ll never get tired of saying it,” I promise.

“I love you,” she answers, pressing closer to me. This really is perfect. Everything about today was perfect. Truthfully, I was a little worried about how it would be when we got home, but this day of absolutely nothing has been even better than all that time we spent in paradise. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that we’re meant to be because I would have gone completely insane if I’d spent the day like this with anyone else.

“Why won’t you move in with me?” Her entire body stiffens and I realize too late what I’ve said. A moment later she pulls away from me, sitting up. She keeps her face turned away from me, though I can tell she’s not happy. She grabs a shirt—my t-shirt from earlier today—from the bottom of the bed and yanks it on, swinging her feet off the edge of the bed. I reach out and grab her wrist, not holding it tightly enough to stop her from leaving, but hopefully enough to get her attention.

“Donna, don’t.”

“I asked you to drop it.” She’s still facing away from me, but she doesn’t make any other move to leave. “Didn’t I ask you to let it go?”

“If you’ll notice, I didn’t ask you to move in with me this time. All I asked was why you won’t.”

“Do you really want to fight about this tonight?”

I sit up, scooting a little closer to her. “I don’t want to fight about it at all. It doesn’t have to be a fight. I just want an answer. The whole thing is already out there and it’s just going to sit there until we find some way through it.” She remains silent, tension radiating off her entire body. “That’s what people in relationships do, right? Talk about things? They don’t let it fester until it turns into something worse.”

Her shoulders slump, some of the fight going out of her. “What’s the rush?”

“The rush? Donna, we’re hardly rushing anything.”

“You really don’t think living together now is moving too fast?”

“Okay, you’ve run this ‘too fast’ thing into the ground, and I really don’t believe you anymore. There has to be more to it.”

She sighs but actually turns to face me, which I take as a positive sign. “You’ve never lived with anyone, have you?”

“I had roommates in college.”

“And that was the last time.” It’s not a question, so I don’t bother to answer. “You’ve never lived with a woman, I’m assuming.”

“Of course not.”

“It changes things, Josh.”

“Well, I would certainly hope so.”

“I’m serious. Living with someone makes things completely different. It’s not like spending the night with someone. There’s no escaping each other.”

“I don’t want to escape you,” I protest.

“Easy for you to say now, but what happens when my habits interfere with your habits, like, the stupid day to day stuff? Or when I try to have a conversation with you during dinner and you get pissed off because you have files to read and notes to make and don’t appreciate me telling you how to live your life? Or when I say we should wash the dishes right after a meal and you think they can sit for a while?”

Something about that list feels off. “Look, I know there’d be an adjustment period, we’ll have to adjust to it no matter when we start to live together, though. I’m sure things would be tough at times but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try it. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to live with. I know it’ll change things between us, but I’m good with that.”

She rolls her eyes, tugging my shirt lower on her thighs. “Because you handle change so well.”

“I can adapt.” She’s not wrong, though; dealing with change isn’t my strongest suit. Not that I’d admit that now.

“If we moved in together now, that whole honeymoon period is gone, you know. It’s not going to feel romantic and fuzzy all the time. It’s just day to day stuff, only with someone else’s junk in your space and another body taking up half your bed.”

“I’ve never slept better in my life than when I’m next to you.” She pauses, her eyes widening a little, and it occurs to me that for all I’ve thought that to myself lately, I haven’t actually told her.

“Josh, I think you need more time."

“I’ve taken too much time as it is. C’mon, Donna. What’s going on? I mean, when was the last time you lived with…oh.” I guess she’s done the cohabitation thing before, a long time ago. I don’t dwell a whole lot on her time before we met, but I do know she took care of that loser for far too long when she was far too young. “You’ve already lived with…”

She gives me a one-shoulder shrug. “Yeah, for a while.”

“And you’re not going to live with me because it didn’t work out with him?"

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Because you know I’m not him, right? I wouldn’t ask you or expect you to drop out of school or quit your job or whatever to support me.”

“I know that.”

“Then seriously, what’s the problem? You don’t want to live with me because we’ve only been together romantically for a couple of weeks, and because once upon a time, you lived with an asshole who didn’t appreciate you, and because I’ve never lived with any of my girlfriends? Your arguments are pretty thin there, Donna.”

She shrugs again, this time reaching for the pajama pants she wore last night, standing up to pull them over her legs. A moment later she disappears through the doorway, leaving me baffled. Something odd is going on with her. I jump up and grab my boxers and drag them on, stumbling a little as I stand. I briefly consider giving her some space and letting it go, but we’ve let too many things go unsaid for too long. Whatever this is, we have to figure it out.

“Donna,” I call out, finding her a moment later in the kitchen. She has the dishwasher open, steam drifting out of it. “C’mon, Donna, talk to me. I know I’m bad at this stuff, but I can’t make it right if you don’t tell me what I did wrong.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says, keeping her back to me. She doesn’t actually take any dishes out; she just kind of pushes them around.

I approach her cautiously, putting my hands on her shoulders. Relief courses through me when she doesn’t pull away. I’m still lost, though. This day has been so weird—mostly amazing because being with Donna this way all day has been great, like a taste of what our life would be like. But these moments where she completely pulls away from me, when she shuts down, are baffling, and I can’t begin to figure out why.

“Please…talk to me.”

Her body slumps, her chin hitting her chest. I pause, but she doesn’t start to shake like she normally does when crying.

“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she finally answers, her voice soft but clear.

“What shoe?”

“Josh…I don’t want to…”

I wrap my arms around her, keeping the embrace loose so she doesn’t feel like I’m trapping her. “You can tell me.”

She sighs, slumping even further. “You’re not good at this.”

Well, that’s a little offensive. “Donna—”

“Relationships in general, Josh,” she corrects, her hands coming up to rest over mine, keeping me in place.

“I know I don’t have the best track record, but you haven’t been picking winners, either.”

“How many women have you dated since I’ve known you?”

“Like, seriously, or in general?”

“It’s not a small number,” she answers, ignoring me. “Most of them not for very long, either, right?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, but you have this tendency to decide you no longer want to date someone, then passively-aggressively wait for them to get so fed up with you ignoring calls and breaking dates that they dump you.”

My entire body tenses and I grab her arms, turning her to face me. “And you think—”

“Even the few you seemed serious about. Look at Mandy. You avoided her by all but going to a different state every time she got close, sometimes actually _leaving the state_ if she was around.” I hate that she's not exaggerating. “And I hate to bring up Amy but—”

“That one ended very acrimoniously,” I cut in. “Twice, in fact.”

“Fine. You’ve successfully broken up with one woman in your life. Congratulations.”

“None of that means it’s going to happen to us,” I protest, and she finally steps away.

“You’ve never had a serious relationship. You’ve never even attempted to live with a woman before. I don’t think you’ve ever given anyone a key, other than me.”

“I really don’t understand your point.”

“You’re still on the relationship high. Everything is new and happy and you want to hold onto that.”

“Of course I do. Who wouldn’t?”

“And when all of that shiny wears off and you’re left with the fights and the complications and monotony, where are you going to be? Where am _I_ going to be?”

“What—”

“I can’t move in with you only for you to decide in a month or two that I’m not what you want, and you start spending the night at work so you can have some space or so you can avoid me.”

“I wouldn’t do that—”

“But you HAVE done it. I’ve seen you do it.”

“I wouldn’t do it to you, Donna, I _want_ to be around you. All of the time. I have for a long time. I just…couldn’t say it before. Most of the time, you were the first person I talked to in the morning and the last one I spoke to at night. I wanted it that way.”

“We’re going to be around each other all the time, you realize that, right? Morning, noon, and night. You’d see me when you wake up, all day at work, and then you’d be stuck with me in the evenings because we’d be coming home together.”

“But we’re not exactly going to see each other most of the day, are we? I’ll be in the West Wing and you’ll be in the East. Most days, we’ll be lucky to have lunch together. Hell, if we don’t live together, we’ll never see each other. We’ve been around each other for fifteen to twenty hours a day for the better part of ten years—this whole working apart thing will be the biggest adjustment of all of them.”

She shrugs, but doesn’t step away from me when I reach out and grab her hands. “I just think you need more time for this. You know, to make sure working with me and living with me isn’t too much.”

“It’s not gonna be too much,” I promise. “Seriously, I want to be with you.”

“Can you blame me for not entirely trusting you about this?”

“You know, in my defense, I’ve never _wanted_ to live with someone else. In fact, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having my space for the last twenty-odd years. I didn’t want to be around Mandy that much ever, and living with Amy seemed vaguely horrifying, even when our relationship was going well—we never even discussed the possibility. And, you know, fine, I haven’t been the most stand-up guy when it comes to the women I’ve dated in the past. I’m not at all good with the part where I end things. But do you really think I’d do that to you? _You_ , of all the people in the world? I don’t know if I’ve said this enough in the past week, but I’m crazy in love with you. I’ve never felt like this about another person, and I’d be willing to place money on that being the reason it’s never really worked with anyone else. If she’s not you, she’s not worth it.”

Donna bites her lip, but I can see a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. I must have said something a little right. “I’m crazy in love with you, too.”

I think my heart actually flutters. I know my stomach twists in a way that’s not painful in the slightest. “Good.”

“Which is _why_ I don’t want to rush this. You’re the one that counts, Josh. We can’t screw this up; there’s no need to rush it. We can take this step by step and make sure we get it right. We’ll learn how to do all the stuff that we haven’t done before together. We’ll make sure we talk to each other instead of shutting down or closing each other out.”

Her argument isn’t entirely without merit. Damn it. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that living with her feels like it’s what I should be doing. “So…does that mean you’re going to call what’s-her-face and tell her she has to find somewhere to live?”

Her head tilts to one side, studying me for a moment. She disentangles our fingers and closes the dishwasher door. Then she heads down the hall toward the bedroom, and I honestly have no idea what I’m supposed to do. She glances at me over her shoulder, and even though I don’t think she meant for it to be sultry, it sends shivers down my spine anyway. I follow her cautiously, still keeping my distance. At this point, I have no idea how she’s going to react to anything I say, and I think this is one of the reasons I’ve never been a huge fan of relationships. I don’t particularly like not knowing where I stand from one moment to the next. Still, there’s no doubt that she’s the one worth the effort. She’s worth more than anything, and I’ll gladly be confused by her for as long as she wants to put with me.

When I finally get to the bedroom, I’m a little surprised to find her standing against the footboard, waiting for me. She’s managed to remove the pajama pants, the hem of the t-shirt grazing the tops of her thighs tantalizingly, and this has to be a good sign. I only take a couple of steps into the room, leaning back against the door frame. I remain silent, waiting. I’ve had enough trouble with my words today.

“How about a compromise?” she asks, her voice soft, and I can’t help but notice how the ambient light of DC at night hits her through the windows, making her glow.

“I like compromise.”

“You really don’t.”

“I really don’t…usually. I’m willing to make an exception for you, though.”

I can see her roll her eyes even as she smiles. “Well, how about if I stay with you for a while?”

I pause, and I swear I can actually feel the gears in my head grinding to a halt. “Isn’t that what…”

“Not live with you,” she says hastily. “But just…you know, stay here with you. See how it goes.”

“That’s not a terrible idea.”

“I’m not giving up my apartment, but I’m not going to kick out Shannon, either. My mailing address will still be the PO Box I’ve been using for months. We’ll…”

“We’ll just sleep together every night, wake up together every morning, cook dinner together, things like that?”

“Right. You know, you’re not wrong about a lot of the stuff you said earlier. It doesn’t make sense to stay with CJ when I wouldn’t really be over there ever. And even if I took back my apartment, I’d probably be here most nights, at least when you weren’t over there with me, and if I’m not going to be using the place, someone ought to, right? And when are we going to see each other if it’s not before and after work?”

“So…this is practical?” I know earlier I wasn’t opposed to her seeing the practical side of all this, but something about hearing her say that she only wants to be with me for convenience sake crushes me more than I’d like to admit.

“Josh, no. It’s not about it being practical. I really like being here with you. It feels good. All the stuff you said about seeing each other first and last, about coming home together and trying to figure all of this out together…I really want to do that. I just don’t want to go all or nothing with this. It’s worth taking our time with it, at least to a point.”

I perk up a little. “To a point?”

She smiles at me a little, and I can see her eyes twinkle in the soft light. “To a point. We’ll try this for a while and see where we are. You know, check in and see how we feel about things.”

“Like, how often?”

She sighs in exasperation. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it yet.”

“What about the Inauguration? Can we check in and reevaluate then?”

She’s silent for a few moments. “Sure,” she finally answers slowly. “We’ll check in with each other around then and see where we are with things. Just don’t forget, Mr. Chief of Staff, that things are going to be pretty hectic at that point. It might not be the best moment to make major life decisions.”

I grin, grabbing her hips to pull her close to me. “I can live with that.” Her arms come up around my shoulders, her head tilting to meet mine. I kiss her slowly, enjoying the feel of her against me, and trying to take in the moment. She’s going to be here. If she needs to call it “staying” with me instead of “living” with me, then that’s fine. The important part is that she’s not going anywhere. We managed to have our first disagreement as a couple and we actually talked about the issue and resolved it. That’s got to be points in favor of making it permanent.

“But I’m not going to mooch off you,” she says suddenly, pulling away from my lips.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m going to pay my share of the rent and bills.”

“Well, first of all, I don’t pay rent—I have a mortgage.”

“Fine, whatever. I’ll pay rent to you to go toward the mortgage or however you want to—”

“I’m afraid not,” I cut her off, grinning. “Rent is for people who live here.”

“But—”

“No, ma’am. If you’re not living here, then I wouldn’t expect you to pay for things I’m already taking care of.”

“Josh, come on. Most of my stuff is going to be here, at least as far as clothes go—”

“And whatever else you feel like bringing over.”

“I can bring other stuff here?”

“Of course. I want you to feel like you’re home and not just visiting. We can do that tomorrow, if you want; go get some stuff, mix it in here.”

“I thought tomorrow was supposed to be naked Sunday.”

I shrug ruefully. “We could dedicate a few hours to wearing clothes. You know, if there was stuff you wanted sooner rather than later.”

She squints at me suspiciously. “I’m supposed to bring stuff over here, eat here, sleep here, spend my free time here, and not pay bills or rent?”

“Great, isn’t it?”

“Josh, that’s insane.”

“My apartment, my rules,” I answer with a shrug. I’m fairly certain I’ve officially gone off the deep end with this, but if she wants to play hard to get on this front, then by God, I’m going to do the same…and be entertained at the same time. “You want to move in, then we can talk about the boring, logistical stuff. Until then, you’re a glorified houseguest with amazing fringe benefits.”

She makes a face at me, but for the first time all day, it’s good-natured. I’m also pretty sure she’s already working on some way around it. “Fine.” Her eyes light up and glance over at the bed, and for a horrifying second, I’m afraid she’s going to tell me she’s withholding sex until I take her money. “I can get my bedding out of storage.”

“Your what?”

“My pillows and blankets and stuff. I can replace that monstrosity of a comforter you’ve got going on.”

“What the hell is wrong with my comforter? Does it not retain heat properly?”

“It’s brown.”

“Yeah…”

“It’s ugly. I mean, your whole apartment looks so classy and put together…until you get to that God-awful brown blanket. Mine is so much nicer and—”

Part of me is ever-so-slightly offended by her harsh judgment of my choice of blanket color. Truthfully, I’ve never given it much thought. I don’t even remember when I bought it, really, or why this particular color was chosen. Still, it’s served me well for a while now, and it certainly kept her warm enough last night. “I’m sorry, but replacing linens is reserved for the lady of the house.”

Her mouth drops open, her eyes as wide as saucers. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“You think sheets and blankets and such are women’s work?”

Oh, she’s good. She wants to turn this into an argument about gender roles. “Absolutely not. That’s really a job for whomever wants it. However, in this apartment, the only other person permitted to make decisions like that other than myself would be the lady of the manor.”

“’The lady of the manor,’” she repeats, fortunately sounding more amused than anything. “Is this suddenly nineteenth century England?”

“How about this? You don’t live here, you don’t get to change the linen scheme.”

She shakes her head at me, and I realize that, truthfully, I don’t care if she wants to bring her comforter over and “redecorate.” But now I’ve come too far. I’ve got to keep playing my hand. If I fold now, next thing I know, I’ll be splitting all of the living expenses with her. I’ve got to stick to my guns for a little while.

It’s dumb, but in this small way, I get to take care of her. I know she doesn’t need me to, nor would she want me to, but I know that her years of servitude didn’t give her much of a chance to do things like actually save money. I’m sure she did a bit better on the Russell Campaign, and I know we paid her well enough during her stint with Santos. I want to be able to do this for her, though, give her some time to not worry about finances. Hell, I’ve been paying all of the stuff here on my own forever—I don’t need the assistance.  
Not that I plan to tell her this. Not for a while. I wouldn’t know how to say it without coming across as some sexist, egotistical jerk who thinks the woman in his life needs saving and protecting. Not that I don’t want to do those things for her, but she does the same for me on a regular basis.

Besides, according to my own rules and definitions, this portion of being able to take care of her will only last until she agrees to officially move in.

“These are my stipulations for staying with me.”

“No rent and an ugly brown comforter?”

“Take it or leave it.” My breath catches in my throat—she could actually decide to leave it. How long would it take me to cave on either front if it came down to it? I’d give it two seconds at the most.

She reaches out and hooks her finger in the waistband of my boxers, dragging me toward her. I trip over my own feet for a moment but manage to grab onto her hips, holding me in place. “I guess I’ll have to take it,” she whispers, leaning up to plant a kiss on my cheek. A whoosh of air leaves me and my heart thumps against my ribcage. We’re actually going to be living together. She can call it what she wants but we’re going to be sharing a home.

I really do understand that things are about to change, but that would have happened no matter what. Our vacation is over. We have a new President transitioning into office. Donna and I are both very obstinate people who have, more or less, been on our own for years, despite our codependent relationship. We’re creating a whole new life together in the middle of all of this insanity. I have no doubt it’s gonna get messy. We’re gonna fight, but probably not more than we have in the past. At least now we can have make-up sex.

“We’ll just take it one day at a time for right now, okay?” she whispers. “Everything going to be so crazy in the next couple of months and I don’t want either of us getting too involved in the future when the present is pretty damn sweet.”

“Agreed.”

“But, Josh, we can’t fall into our old patterns when we’re back in the White House.”

“How on earth would that happen? We’re going to be on opposite sides of the building.”

“We have to try to do things like leave at a relatively decent hour, and, you know, not be there before sunrise every morning.”

“Donna, I’m not always going to be able—”

“I know that. I’m not talking about when you have actual situations to deal with. I’m just talking about the way you’d do it for sport. I want to be able to spend time with you outside of work when possible. You can delegate stuff to your staff. Spread the work around a bit. Don’t keep it all for yourself and whoever your next assistant is going to be.”

“Are you really not aware that we spent so much time at work the first time around because I wanted to hang out with you?”

“You’re the worst.” She’s smiling, though, so I don’t think she believes I’m actually the worst.

“And I really doubt that any assistant I have is going to come close to you, nor would I want to work that closely with anyone who isn’t, you know, you.”

“Promise me you’ll try.”

“I promise. I just want to say, for my part, knowing that you’re figuratively waiting for me at home will give me a lot more incentive to leave the building. Besides, I’m already a little scared of Mrs. Santos. I’m sure she’ll be putting the kibosh on the Present-elect being in the office all the time. They have two little kids they’ll want to spend time with. But I promise I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you. That’s all I ask.”

I tug her back into my arms, burying my face in her neck. I know I’m a workaholic, but lately the appeal of spending all of my time at the office just hasn’t been there. We’ve sacrificed too much for the job over the years, not the least of which is time we possibly could have been together. It’s time for this now. Of course, I’ll dedicate myself to the job, but if I ever have to choose, I’m picking Donna.

“What’re you doing?”

I pause, realizing my hands have wandered, of their own volition, and are now under the edge of her t-shirt. “I’m feeling you up, apparently.”

“Trust you to take a nice moment and turn it into something smutty,” she answers in disgust, her own hands sliding softly across my back, her nails dragging across my skin.  
Without another word, I fuse my mouth to hers, steering her around to the side of the bed. The backs of her knees hits the mattress and she collapses against it, leaning back to stretch out tantalizingly. I push the shirt slowly up her body, biting back a groan as her soft, pale skin is revealed to me. She helps me pull the shirt over her head and I hover over her on my hands and knees, gawking at her. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen her naked, the novelty hasn’t worn off. It’s still astonishing that she lets me do this to her. Not only do I get to see her naked, it’s encouraged. And for the record, she’s magnificent.

She bites her lip, her skin darkening under my scrutiny, obvious even in the low light. I lower my lips to her, bypassing her mouth this time in favor of the rest of her. I kiss her neck and her shoulders, her collarbone, her hands threading through my hair as I reach her breasts. I make my way down to her stomach, pausing at her belly button. I look up at her, searching for approval—her eyes are shut, her mouth is open, and I can hear soft noises escaping her lips. I’d say that’s a green light.

I continue on my path, kissing her hips, mourning for just a moment that I don’t have the libido of my early college years so we could have sex all the time. As it is, my body’s still recovering. On the other hand, I get to do this to her, so it’s a trade-off I think I’m willing to live with.

I’ll tell her afterward about the other rule of the house—no pants in bed. I think she’ll be amenable to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s a wrap, folks. Maybe not the resolution you were looking for, but it works for me. Some of you have spoken to being confused about the direction I’ve taken because of Donna’s ultimatum…I suppose I never saw it as a completely black or white issue. I never read it as Donna saying that they had to be all in or all out—figuring out what they want from each other always meant, to me, that they needed to figure out if this was long term or casual. They could decide to be in it for the long haul without jumping right into marriage or even completely living together. Does that make any sort of sense? Anyhow, thanks for reading and the support, and more stuff is on the horizon. The side-by-side one probably isn’t next; I’ve had another one written for some time that I’ll probably post in between. It’s of the smutty variety, though, so if that’s not your thing, I apologize.

**Author's Note:**

> So, there you have it—the first part of my exploration of Josh and Donna in their new relationship. There’ll probably be four chapters total. I have another story I typed up that’s definitely on the naughty side, and two more that need to be taken from my notebook. I’m currently working on another story—well, two, really—that’ll be told from both of their POVs. Hopefully, it won’t be redundant. Those’ll be on the naughty side, too. Oddly, everything I have right now is from Josh’s perspective. I wonder how that happened.
> 
> Anyway, I’ve had a truly horrible week. I’m hoping that all of you are faring much better.


End file.
